With Industrie 4.0, IT and OT departments are converging more and more. Today, the two biggest problems are the inefficient communication as well as an integrated security approach for IT/OT systems. In order to overcome these challenges, industrial companies have to establish a comprehensive and common security culture. We already talked about the differences between IT […]

Intelligent machines communicate with each other via IoT platforms – these are no longer dreams of the future. These platforms need to be programmed and millions of data from the machines and plants have to be analyzed. Therefore, software developers like Hüseyin are in high demand, because of the growing skills shortage. He is a […]

Discussing about disruptive changes and factory 4.0. User centric development of products and production in batch size one become a major competitive factor, says Stefan Aßmann from Bosch. One further insight: the digital mindset of the employees and a close cooperation between companies finally lead to added value on the way to digitalization and Industrie […]

We are pleased to introduce the Digital Fact Finding of SMS group on the path to a self-learning steel plant. Due to an informative benchmarking report, the key areas of activity for your digital transformation are identified and potential solutions are subsequently revealed. Get to know more about Digital Fact Finding and start your individual […]

1. Lack of Know-how Disruptive changes, like Industrie 4.0 lead to a full restructuring of an existing market. Problems are suddenly tackled and solved in a completely new way. Normally it is not part of the core competence of existing market players to initiate or to implement such a change. Because they often lack the appropriate […]

Shiftconnector® in conversation with SMS digital about challenges and opportunities of Industrie 4.0. 1. What have been your customers’ biggest challenges based on digital transformation and how were you able to solve them? Shift documentation often still takes place in classic paper books. However, this form of documentation has many disadvantages. Communication is not only impeded […]

2. Skills Shortage Digital transformation in a company can only succeed if qualified employees are involved. However, there is still a widespread deficiency. There is a chronic skills shortage and at the same time new job profiles are created with digital transformation that haven’t been there before. Companies lack the knowledge of how to develop […]

In Software as a Service solutions, you accesses the corresponding IT-systems of the service provider via a web-based application. This has many benefits: Flexible & Easy Simple implementation; Information is available always and everywhere; can also be used via various devices such as PCs, smartphones and tablets Scalable Users can be added or deleted as required […]

3. Data Flood Predictive Maintenance, Smart Production, Smart Factory – these keywords are indicators for the continuous data growth. Machines are equipped with sensors collecting a multitude of data. These sensors keep getting cheaper and thus more and more machines can become “intelligent”. However, the arising data flood can only be handled right if companies […]

SMS group uses the potentials of platform economy to consolidate its position as the leading partner in the world of metals. The emergence of digital platforms in the metal industry opens up new competitive advantages for companies, e.g. lower transaction costs, increase of revenue due to new services as well as strong customer loyalty. The spin-off […]

Last Friday, the annual summer festival of the Schwanenhöfe took place – SMS digital was also involved. With colleagues and partners, we had a great evening with delicious food and a varied entertainment. Thank you all for coming and celebrating with us!

The world’s leading trade fair for the aluminium industry takes place in Düsseldorf from October 9 – 11 2018 with a spotlight on Industrie 4.0. Digital transformation is one of the most important issues for the industry. A survey with 240 aluminium experts, conducted in association with the ALUMINIUM World Trade Fair 2018, additionally revealed that […]

The last article of our series is about MVPs (Minimum Viable Products), fast product development and a rapid market launch. Again, the focus is on the user. Again, the aim is to develop new digital products efficiently and in the most user centric way. And again, it is about an iterative process. In the development […]

4. Data privacy and data integrity Digital transformation presents industrial companies with the challenge of comprehensively and effectively protecting sensitive company and customer data. More and more processes are digitalized, machines are interconnected and huge amounts of data are collected. That is how new value-added networks emerge via which industrial companies and their partners can […]

Do you know how energy-efficient your plant is? Energie Benchmark from our new partner Limón identifies improvement potentials by means of a well-directed analysis and demonstrates how you can make use of energy as a competitive factor. Learn more about Energie Benchmark.

Exhibitors from more than 56 countries and about 370.000 visitors came to gamescom 2018 in Cologne this month. Prior to the gamescom, SMS digital and SMS group took part in the prestigious game developers event devcom. During various presentations and discussions with several developers, we learned that the trends of the gaming industry are even relevant […]

Scrum is one of the most popular methodologies for agile software development and is based on only a few, easy to learn rules. Basically, it is about realizing new products fast and efficiently in self-organizing teams without additional project management. The way of working according to Scrum is incremental and iterative. Scrum arose from the […]

The use of cutting-edge technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) allows industrial companies to save time and money. Especially the design of new machines and plants can be significantly accelerated thanks to VR and AR. The training of new employees or staff can also benefit from these two technologies. The changed […]

Our Industrial App Store is continuously growing: the local software of Cybus makes machine data and process data available for every application and cloud solution. Cybus is a universal connector integrating existing and new machines in no time. Via an end-to-end encryption and an independent access management, you keep control over the incoming and outgoing […]

To permanently establish Industry 4.0, the existing isolated solutions have to make way for consistent standards. A fully interconnected “Smart Factory” only works if the collected machine data is exchanged and used. That does not only concern the plant itself but also new emerging value-added networks. But developing new standards in comprehensive committees mostly takes […]

An SMS group steel plant was ordered by Voestalpine Böhler Edelstahl. The plant will have a size of 50.000 sq m and it will set new standards in energy efficiency and innovative automation of the production processes, according to SMS group. Read more about it: steeltimesint.com China plans to reduce steel production To reduce air […]

Design Thinking is an approach for solving problems and finding new innovative ideas creatively. Products, which are developed that way, always consider the requirements of the user and how the product can fulfill them best. Interdisciplinary teams work together in iterative processes, involve the customer right from the start and quickly develop first prototypes. Based […]

Our partner University4Industry offers the opportunity to gain exclusive insights to relevant issues of Industry 4.0. Theory is fine and dandy, but how can knowledge be transferred into practice? The free learning videos and tests give, among others, answers to the following questions: How can methods of Advanced Analytics or Machine Learning help using data […]

Industrial companies hope to fully flexibilize their production with Industry 4.0. Ideally, all component parts are constructed in a highly customer-oriented way, in batch size 1 and preferably in real time. This sounds like a futuristic vision, but it is already reality in the production of spare parts. Thanks to additive manufacturing, the first individually […]

DepotCity offers comprehensive storage and fulfillment solutions where you rent and pay a stockyard only if you really need it – without minimum term. Using DepotCity you do not need any knowledge of logistics. In addition, thanks to transparent price and process structures, you can focus on your core business. Learn more about Depotcity.

Digital products are a very important part of digital transformation. This raises many questions, especially for SMEs: How to tackle the development of digital products? Which methodologies are available? Which one fits best? In our new series, we will show you what this is about and what is important in this context. The first article […]

6. Lack of willingness to embrace Digital Transformation In 2016, a survey of the Institute of German Economy in Cologne states that SMEs hesitate to occupy themselves with digital transformation. Not much has changed since then. Many companies declare that they are inhibited by their employees’ resistance to change. In addition, they are still uncertain […]

The VR tool Cross Connected® from our new partner R3DT simplifies a fast development of virtual prototypes. Plants and processes can be visualized better and reviewed faster thanks to the VR tool. As a consequence, the development of new products is accelerated, time-to market is reduced and money is saved. Get to know more about […]

The German Hannover Messe is coming to the International Manufacturing Show IMTS on 10-15 September 2018 in Chicago. Together, they aim to bring about the largest event of manufacturing technology in Northern America. According to the organizer, 115.000 international visitors have already registered to exchange about topics such as integrated automation. Read more about it: […]

7. High investment costs Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) promise companies competitive advantages and an innovative boost. However, many companies are put off by the investment costs. Especially SMEs are uncertain about how to tackle a digital transformation strategy in general and which investment costs lie ahead of them. That does […]